Shadow Falls
It's mid-afternoon in the dreary village of Shadow Falls, in the Land of Craters. This industrial mining and smelting town is old- its founding dating to far before the first war. Rumor has it that the process for iron production was invented here, in this backwater valley hundreds of years ago. The dozens of ancient stone furnaces adorning the windward face of the nearby mountain seem to lend credence to this belief, but have long since been abandoned in preference to more modern smelting methods. A waterfall sprays from the cliff face of the mountainside, and its waters trickle into the community in a small stream. The town gained its name, it's said, from the clear waters that well up from the heart of the mountain, and the shadow it passes through. At one time Shadow Falls was a busy, industrious community- but it has recently fallen on hard times. In the wake of the diseases that have plagued the region, it alone has seemingly been spared. Spared, but not unharmed. This small community of roughly five hundred relied almost exclusively on the outside world for food. The destruction of the Land of Craters has destroyed trade in the region, and farming has ceased. The village now hovers at the edge between desperation and hope, as food supplies dwindle. Some of the village have turned to more desperate food sources. Few pet cats and dogs remain alive, having mysteriously vanished. The mountain goats and rams of the valley have likewise been exhausted. There are rumors of cannibalism... but so far, this hasn't been proven. Some have even turned to the infamous Black Crowns that adorn the walls and streets of the village. The Black Crown is a mushroom that is uniquely adapted to Shadow Falls- the heavy minerals and metals that are drawn out of the mines of the village have thoroughly contaminated the groundwater and soil- nothing grows here except for this strange fungus. The villagers, likewise, contain unusually high levels of toxins and radioactivity. The Black Crown, however, has adapted its radioactivity as a means of producing food in the naturally dark village. The heat of its radioactivity breaks down the wood and biodegradable matter, freeing the life-giving chemicals upon which it subsists. It's this strange, sullen village that a lone ninja arrives at. A lone crow, flying overhead, trumpets his arrival in a cacophony of raucous caws. Still cushioning his broken ribs from his encounter with Kosui, Kisui had her follow him to investigate the disturbance he noticed after their fight. He makes his way through the village center and knew that the entire village looks like it was hit hard, especially around the town center. Unable to receive supplies from the outside world, the main village within the Land of Craters, Shadow Falls, had begun to fall apart. He heard rumors of the villagers resorting to cannibalism, and though this hasn't been proven, he didn't cross it from his mind. The center of town was worse than the outskirts. Seemed most of it was falling into disrepair. Kisui almost felt a sense of unease. The villagers that saw him began shutting their doors, locking the doors behind them, as if they were scared of something. "What could have caused this village to just fall apart like this?" Kosui asked, observing the village's almost barren landscape. It was like looking at something out of a bad dream. The ground was grey, the trees were dead, as if it was a village of death. An old man slowly stumbles forward from one of the buildings near the center of the village, towards the community well. "The Blight happened. A terrible disease swept across the land, infecting the people. I do not know the fate of Crater village, but without trade, our village is succumbing to starvation..." The old man is missing a leg and an arm, and his body shows clear signs of inanition. His shaking frame plods forward on a crutch made from a branch. His drawn face, sunken eyes, and distended stomach reveal a sickening revelation; he must have had to consume his limbs to survive. Noting the travelers' glances at his bandaged stumps, he shrugs. "It is better than being dead. Or at least, I hope so." His head turns back towards the sound of a child's cry, emanating from his shack of a home, before turning back to Kisui with a look of earnest desperation. "Please, sirs. I don't want much. Just a little food would do... anything you have. I'm growing weaker, and it's only a matter of time before the others begin to turn on eachother. I have to save her... my granddaughter. She's the only one I have left." Trembling, his eyes begin to water, and a single tear drips down the side of his dirty, malnourished face. Kosui begins realizing how it would be if Black Crown had begun to take over. A look of sadness over her face, she realizes if they get their way, every village would no doubt end up like this. Looking back at her supply wagon, though it had a fair share of scrolls, there was also other supplies; Food, water, mostly stuff the others packed before she did. Looking deeply at the scrolls, she grabs them and begins dousing them down with water, the writing and parchment washing away. "No more." Walking back to the wagon, she grabs a bag of supplies containing food and water. The food consists of things like fruit and vegetables with some stocks of meat that was pre-cooked before the shipment, kept in a separate package and warmed with a heat scroll inside. "There's quite a bit of food in here. The people of Jikanogakure were always good at packing supplies. Guess when you've had forty years to do it, you learn a thing or two about convenience." Kisui looks at her with surprise, noting a change within her soul. A more dominant feeling of ease was flooding over her negative emotions. He couldn't help but smile. "When did all this happen?" Kisui asks. "It must have been a few days in order to reduce the village to this level of starvation sickness." "It's been two months since the the last traveller came to our village... I think." The old man squints, as though exerting effort to remember. "I think my memory is going. Maybe it's old age, or maybe it's because I'm starving, but...," shrugging in futility, he gives up, "oh, it's nothing." His eyes flicker to the supplies being unpacked, and his gaze seems to take on a feral quality for an instant, before reverting back to a semblance of civility. Other villagers, who had been eyeing the exchange from hiding, are beginning to open their doors to get a better look at Kosui's supplies. "There should be enough for everyone here. We have population records of a good majority of the villages so we can know how much supplies is required to send into each village." Kosui explains. She sees each of the villagers slowly open their doors to inspect the supplies she sent to the village. "We have a wide variety of supplies here, from fresh grown crops to fresh cooked meat and plenty of water from our village spring." Smiling, she begins unpacking the rest of the supplies, with Kisui pitching in to help as well. "Food, they have food!" In moments, it seems like the entire village is hemming in around you. Some of the larger men begin muscling their way to the front. A child grabs a handful of produce off the table before bolting, and in a moment, the crowd is in an uproar. The mob starts shoving and pushing, and grabbing supplies by the armload. A baby falls out of a woman's arms as she's violently shoved aside by a pack of men with knives. "It's ours, ours I tell you! Back!" Letting out a sigh, Kisui stamps his foot down, a small wave of energy booming from the ground, stopping the crowd in their tracks. "That's quite enough. I understand you're all hungry, right now. But the important thing we need right now is civility. You're villagers, not savages." Walking into the crowd, Kosui notices the baby and picks up the baby, placing it into the mother's arms. "We need order in this village. So right now, groups of relatives each line up in a circle and we will give you food." Kisui explains, doing what he can to restore order to the village. Kosui begins noticing how much of a take charge man Kisui can be when things are at stake. The mother of the baby, her face overjoyed at his act of heroism, rushes forward to take her child in one hand, and tries to pull Kisui into a deep hug with the other. "Thank you, thank you so much, Kisui Iyoku..." Kisui begins to retract his arm from the child, but pauses when he realizes... his hand has gone into the baby? As though the baby is.. melting over his hand. The woman turns her face up to his, her mouth agape, her face and eyes distended as a collection of writhing leech-like barbed tentacles are undulating out of her mouth in a clustered mass. Heaving with her entire body, it's as though she's throwing up her guts, and the swarm of tentacles lash out to encompass Kisui's form. The baby as well, becomes malformed as the same barb-like lancets begin tearing their way out of its body and attempt to embed themselves in Kisui's hand. The villagers around you are likewise undergoing similar horrific transformations. The air fills with the sounds of cracking bones and rending flesh as the... things shed their human forms and commence their attack. Witnessing the events taking place, Kosui takes a kunai out of her pocket and cuts the tentacles, freeing Kisui from the creature's grasp. "What in the hell is going on?!" Kosui yells out. Pulling the tentacles off of him, Kisui could only come to one conclusion. "It must have been a genjutsu. The villagers, they were never real." Activating his Rinnegan, Kisui takes a battle stance. "If it was indeed a genjutsu, it must have been a powerful genjutsu. Not even I could have seen it. Whoever did this is a dangerous being, or creature." Hagoromo explains. Kosui, too, takes a combat stance, forming a sphere of water in her hands, ready to manipulate it at a moment's notice. As the villagers begin to attack, Kisui and Kosui stay close, with Kosui launching several jets of heavily pressurized water, piercing through the creatures. Kisui, on the other hand, summons a sword, imbued with the energy of the Deva path. Each swing against a creature sends them flying... ... or it would, if not for the creatures' amorphous forms. The pressurized water and sword alike easily slice through the creatures, but rather than being forced back or slain, their bodies divide under the assaults. Pulling themselves back together, some begin to fuse together into a larger form. It grows in size, like a giant pimple or postule. As the membranous flesh stretches, it becomes translucent, revealing its contents. Thousands of swarming insects are being budded inside this flesh-sphere. As it sprouts articulated legs and begins crawling foward, many of the semi-humanoid flesh monsters begin firing splinters of a crystalline substance at Kisui and Kosui. The dessicated shards of blood that miss their targets shatter against the ground or else become embedded in the surroundings, before exploding into small clouds of red mist. "Okay... that's unnerving." As the splinters begin firing towards Kisui and Kosui, Kisui forms a barrier, blocking the majority of the splinters while the two make a run for it. "This was no genjutsu. Those... things, they were clones. They all believed they were real, right up until their transformation." The samurai spirit explains. "Regardless, we've got to run, now." As the two run through the village, the splinters begin blasting through the buildings as if they weren't even there, sending splinters of wood and other building materials outward. Summoning a shield, Kisui begins blocking all he can, shielding Kosui from any potential impacts while the two continue to run. "How can we fight something that's amorphous in nature? Anything we throw at it will just multiply the creatures." As he speaks, the ground begins to quake as fissures start to form in the ground beneath the village. Whole buildings fall inward as the ground beneath them collapses into dozens of sinkholes. A brown mist begins to pour out of them, flooding into the air of the village in a vile fog, and the smell of methane bombards your nostrils. From the village square, is a resounding explosion as the posture ruptures. Thousands of the flesh-insects pour free of their womb, splitting into multiple clouds as they pursue their prey. As the methane begins flowing into the village, Kisui and Kosui begin coughing violently, the intense aroma hitting them like a truck. Thinking quickly, Kisui creates a barrier around his and Kosui's mouths out of Yin and Yang energy, a sort of artificial filter to filter out the methane in the air, allowing them to breathe. Kisui, having taken the largest scent of the methane, feels his body getting weak, somewhat, adding up alongside his broken ribs, but still does his best to keep Kosui protected. Kosui begins setting up water bombs made of highly acidic water, throwing them at the insects. She doesn't believe they'll stop them, but hopes it'll slow them down enough to help them escape. Ace drops in from the sky, with puppets dropping all around Kisui, Kasui and himself. Ace concentrated Yin Release Chakra in his hand before forming a vacuum sphere composed of chakra, with lowered power, sucking the methane into it, freeing his comrades lungs from the potent gas. Scanning the shinobi's bodies with his X-Ray vision, Ace can see several broken ribs. "Alpha, Treat his wounds! "Yes, Yes" they replied, with Alpha stepping over to treat Kosui wounds, applying chakra to and Nanobots into his body to help repair the damaged bones. "It won't fix them completely, but it will take so time to get you healed" she said, worried for the shinobi. "It looks like another Walking Dead / Alien's Movie out there man! What the hell are these things and what happened?" Ace questioned Kisui about the current situation. "Radiation by itself doesn't do stuff like this!" he added. "Something is in this village. Something living. That mass of tentacles and insects were once villagers, well, clones. No doubt clones of the original villagers. Anyone who was in this village before us is dead. Whatever is out there, it's in control of that thing." Kisui replies. Feeling his ribs fusing back together, Kisui walks over to Kosui, who could do nothing but gaze at the creature. "How could I even think something evil like that could have been majestic? How could I even think evil at all could have been the right thing?" She lands down on her knees, demoralized by what she had seen the villagers turn into. "If we make it out of this alive, I've got to turn my life around. I just have to." Kisui places his hands over Kosui's shoulders, hoping to comfort her. "It's ok Kosui, you didn't know... I thought all the radiation in the area was strange, but nothing could have led me to believe that a creature of was duplicating people after killing them off - hell, the way those creatures look, its almost as if the people themselves were devoured, and then the creatures simply mimicked their appearance." Ace said as he looked around the area, looking for a way out. "I'm just a clone of Ace but I can do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of you both. I originally flew over the place to scan the area for radiation, in connection to the giant fly's I have in captivity, but I got nothing until now - and those things are clearly too dangerous to get samples of. I say we go full offensive, what do you two think?" Ace asked as he looked as Kosui, feeling bad for her, though he didn't blame her for trying to help the people in need. "Alright. I'm going to link us with one of my spirits. He's been watching the battle much more carefully than we have, so he might have some ideas." Placing his hands over Ace and Kosui's foreheads, Kisui begins spiritually connecting them to the samurai spirit in order for him to give info on the creature. "Whatever this creature is, it's amorphous, meaning if you strike it down, it'll multiply. We need to form a method of attack that ensures whatever hits it destroys it down enough to where it cannot multiply. But with a creature that big, we'll need one big attack do to that." The spirit explains. Being a war veteran before his untimely death, the samurai always looks through battle with a keen eye, observing small details that even Kisui would miss. As the three speak and plan, the mist thickens, and takes on a red tint as the air becomes suffuse with blood, spores, and other microbes. Strangely, the persistent chakra constructs of Kisui and Ace's puppet begin to waver, as though the rust-red mist were diffusing the chakra. Maintaining them, it seems, will require a constant output of chakra. Kosui's acid bombs make quick work of some of the swarms, easily melting them into a green smouldering soup, but aren't able to destroy all the threats. The biting insects, which appear to be an amalgam of hornet and cockroach swarm over the three. Hundreds of the things latch onto Kisui, Kosui and Ace's clothes and attempt to sting and bite. Noticing the broken barrier, Kisui begins seeing the insects latching onto his clothes. Thinking fast, Kisui begins forming energy around his fist and slams it into the ground, a shockwave pushing the insects off of him, Ace and Kosui. "We need to move, now!" Kisui yells. While Kosui and Ace make a run for it, Kisui creates a pool of energy before following behind. This energy begins pulling in the insects thanks to its gravity and crushes them, hopefully giving them some more time to formulate another plan. Catching up with Kosui and Ace, Kisui runs alongside them. Kosui throws more acid water bombs at pursuing insects that avoided the pool to try and lessen their numbers. "They just keep coming! How many of these damn bugs are there?" Kosui yells. .]] Ace activates his Physical Path, with his body changing into a new form. "I can attempt to slow this thing down. Go ahead and I promise I'll catch up to you two" Ace said as he knew what he had to do. With his body glowing like flames, he seemingly disappeared moving so fast and suddenly spontaneous combustion was initiated. "I'll purify this creature with my flames!" Ace said as he formed a volly of handsigns. Initiating two different techniques almost instantly, he emitted extreme heat from both hands and mouth at the creatures, causing a massive explosion. Ace versus Pestilence As the other two flee into the murky ruins of the village, Ace confronts the villain behind this terrifying disaster. Ace's explosions annihilate at least a dozen of the flesh-shifting demons, and pushes back the rust colored fog for a moment, revealing a gaunt figure standing at the edge of his vision. The carnomorphs that haven't been obliterated by gravity, acid or fire based attacks hide, ducking into the houses and buildings surrounding the area. With a lurching, unnaturally rigid gait, the figure raises this two hands, as though directing a concert. And perhaps he is- two waves of brackish particles wash towards Ace's flaming form. They splash across his flames harmlessly. With a hint of surprise, Kokushi remarks, "Surprising. You aren't using fire release to harness those flames. They appear to be natural. How novel." Ace could see the man. "So, you must be the one behind this... Well... lets see what you are truly made of..." Ace stated, as he concentrated chakra throughout his body and limbs taking on a new form. Taking his signature stance, Ace quickly made his way to the ground before rolling up to the man, kicking him into the air. Upon kicking him, Ace could see the effect that his gravity modifying attacks were taking on the his opponent as he was set ablaze by his kick. Ace flew into the air, and uppercut the man, lighting up his body with flames, though the flame tendrils themselves were flowing downward at this point, due to the increased gravity the opponent was experiencing. In a bone breaking finish, Ace threw a gravitational punch at the him from above, the guy flying down in a fiery ball. "You want some? COME GET SOME!" Ace shouted as he flew down towards the man, who was pinned to the ground by the 'gravity lag' he was experiencing. Ace's kick connects solidly with Kokushi's body, but Kokushi is deceptively heavy for his gaunt form. Far too heavy- being several tons in weight, Ace's kick barely lifts Kokushi off the ground. Kokushi's immense body density also makes him remarkably resilient- Ace's kick leaves a dent in Kokushi's chest, but it seems to immediately fill back in after the flesh is shifted aside by the force of the impact. The fire consumes Kokushi's body, and the intense flames begin to peel away the outer layers of Kokushi's flesh like burnt onion petals, but rather than yelling out in pain, Kokushi begins to laugh maniacally. As Ace descends with his fiery finisher, Kokushi's body divides and the pieces push away from eachother, flying aside in multiple directions. This act allows Kokushi to evade the punch (although the fleshy tissues still strike the ground around with great force). The five pieces fall to either side of Kokushi's real trap. Ace fell for it, hook line and sinker. His forceful landing causes Kokushi's pit trap to trigger, and the surface collapses inward into a massive sinkhole, drawing Ace and much of the ground around him into the mines beneath the village. The fleshy masses of Kokushi's divided body rapidly undulate, crawling into the darkness in pursuit. While falling through the hole in the ground, Ace phased, allowing the falling rocks and debris to simply pass through him. Upon reaching the botoom, Ace looked around and took note that he was in an abandoned mine shaft. "So, you dodge my last attack... That's quite an achievement for me being in this form." Ace said to aloud. "I'd love to stay and chat with you, but I have two friends I need to get back to. 'I'm a busy man Captain Crunch - Let's make this quick!'" Ace added. The globules of shifting flesh expand and merge into an oozing sphere of incredibly dense biomatter, and slip down the vertical shaft like some kind of semi-sentient ooze. As it descends, it ejects a large number of the same blood-shards it fired earlier, along with ejecting more of the cloying blood-colored mist. Launching themselves out of side passages, roughly three dozen of the carnimorphs appear. Rather than attacking him directly, they aim hoses at him, and begin firing streams of acid. These high-pressure hoses were located in various areas of the mine, being used to break down the rock of the mountain to make its precious ores available. Ace remained phased as he stood there, watching the extremely acidic substance burn everything it touched. "Why exactly were you attacking those two shinobi back there?" Ace asked the creatures. The mass of flesh ceases to descend, and the carnimorphs close their hoses. A bud of flesh emerges from inside the larger mass, and Kokushi's head morphs into shape and speaks, "Immortality is a sin. Kosui Iyoku holds within him, the soul of a samurai who refused to pass on. It is my responsibility as a servant of death, to visit the ultimate punishment upon this heretic for this unforgivable hubris." He smiles sadistically, and continues, "As for you... you have a host of abilities that seem useful to me. I will absorb your flesh... and your voice shall unite with the great choir of agony within me." "You know nothing about me except for what I have shown you. I for one, am biologically immortal, unable to die due to age. You immortality sounds great in a sense, but it's not something I want to join, so I'm going to have to deny that offer. Sorry." Ace responded to the man as he analyzed his bod in all of its grotesque and pungent glory. Yelling in anger, Kokushi shouts, "It's not over yet!" and blood pours out of the flesh and drips down the walls of the tunnel before puddling on the floor. As Ace watches, the blood shifts and flows into the configuration of a sealing array. The mass of Kokushi's main body collapses atop it, before channeling a massive flow of chakra. In a puff of smoke, the mass of flesh vanishes. The carnimorphs leave the area. For over a minute, nothing occurs. Seeing no movement within the range of his vision, Ace begins to relax in his dimension... his sense of security vanishes, as a powerful emission of chakra is expelled from the underside of his right shoe. In an instant, the fleshy bulk of Kokushi's biomass is ejected from a seal located upon the sole of the footwear. It expands outward explosively. In full, the total size of the biomass seems to be on par with a massive building. Kokushi has invaded Ace's dimension. Lumps of flesh are fired off of the main body at high speeds along multiple trajectories, and like a dandelion in a powerful wind, the majority of the remainder of his bulky mass seems to obliterate into a fine cloud that rapidly expands in every direction. A human-sized remnant of the biomass stays and morphs into Kokushi's more familiar human form. He stretches, and cracks his neck. Looking around in interest at his surroundings, he speaks in a matter-of-fact tone, "Nice place. I'll take it." "That was pretty slick, getting into my dimension by use of spores. But I hate to say it, this is your final resting place... at least this part of you..." said Ace as he incinerated the cloths and anything else that wasn't part of his body through use of his chakra armor. He then formed a group of handsigns while concentrating the required chakra into his palms and body with the use of his expert chakra control. Suddenly, [[Spatial Collapse|the horizon as far as the eye could see collapsed into a sub-dimension, containing all the spores of his opponent. "Perish..." said Ace as the technique collapsed in on itself, creating a contained explosion equivalent of the big-bang, all wrapped in a blanket of space-time, confined by itself. "I'm not completely confident that he's gone... but their nothing keeping him from coming back either, as if 1 spore is left, he can regenerate his entire body back... what a very useful ability..." the clone remarked. As the space begins to close around Kokushi, he marvels at the extraordinary power Ace holds within the dimension... and smiles. Ace's attack, for all its might, ironically was playing into his hands. Kokushi's purpose by spreading his spores and cells wasn't to infect Ace; he had an ulterior motive all along. By casting his net wide, he intended to find trace bits of the original Ace's genetics. Stray skin particles, saliva, hair, and even mucus from the occasional sneeze. The timeless nature of this realm, would make it that even these particles would not have decomposed; they are ageless. And even for Kokushi's enormous volume, the task would have likely ended in failure. Space is vast, and the chance of one of his spores intersected the trajectory of these trace particles was statistically insignificant. But as the space closes in, the density of his spores and cells grows... until... As the walls of space begin to close tight around him, Kokushi initiates a fuinjutsu by animating some of his blood and tissue to create a seal. In an instant, the bulk of his mass disappears in a flash, and his biomass is likewise drawn into the seal. Space closes around the seal, instantly obliterating it and the space it occupied in a singularity. Since the seal is destroyed, however, this causes Kokushi and his biomass to be ejected into the freshly emptied space where the singularity once stood. "Let me repeat myself, "immortal". I said I'm taking this place..." His bloodshot eyes seem to pierce into Ace's with some kind of feral desire. "... and you." With this declaration, the cloud of spores around Kokushi coalesces into a massive sphere of flesh. Within the heart of this sphere, roughly a thousand humaniform clones are created. Each activates the eight gates. Around this "fissile tissue", another layer forms- this one of chakra-consuming bacteria. As they are bombarded with vast quantities of chakra, they rapidly multiply... Surrounding the bacterium layer, is a layer of undifferentiated tissues and cells. Kokushi, taking advantage of the high recovery rate of the realm and by inflicting cancer upon these cells, cultivates vast quantities of flesh. The sphere begins to expand at an alarming rate. The outer surface of the sphere grows pores on the side facing ace, from which thousands of additional humaniform carnimorphs fly out of. These misshapen, winged creatures move with haste towards Ace. Like the core-flesh, they activate the eight gates, endowing them with unnaturally high speed as their physically enhanced limbs create greater thrust. These pores also expel large quantities of methane gas, propelling the fleshy planetoid away from ace at a steady speed. Hidden within the absolute center of this sphere a small, man-sized chamber forms... and something begins to grow within it. Those that close to within a few hundred feet of Ace perform a self-destructive technique. While Fury itself has remarkable destructive power, it has been further augmented by both the chakra release of the 8 gates feeding it- and the tripling of chakra recovery granted by the realm. In simpler terms- these massive explosions are being powered by 24-gate release, thousands of fold. The area around Ace becomes awash in vast quantities of light and heat. The space itself becomes suffuse with the incalculable amounts of energy released in the destruction. Using his enhanced eyes, he looked at the explosion in slow motion. "Well... It's come down to this... I guess I have no choice..." though the Clone as he the explosion approached. Suddenly, with a gaze, the explosion [[|Purgatory|stopped]]. With another gaze, the spores stopped as well. "With my Dimensional Path activated, that technique will keep them in stasis and at bay for 50 seconds... Way more than enough time to do what's needed...." the clone though as he concentrated all of his chakra into his eye, using the power of the Dimensional Path to create a massive event horizon. Their were approximately 42 seconds left, and the clone was running low on chakra. Using Jikuunuru in combination with Spatial Tunnel, the clone made it to where the spores and the explosion were locked within 10 feet of his body as he fell toward the massive event horizon that was about to destroy the dimension, as well as him and his opponent, about to rip them apart on the elementary particle level. "This is the end of my, and my opponent..." he said as he fainted, with the explosion and the spores being pulled in by the gravity of the clones final assault, with the opponent having just 28 seconds left in stasis. Fortunately for Kokushi, materials in temporal stasis are functionally indestructible. Their unchanging state makes energy transfer from a non-stasis source to the frozen matter impossible. So in spite of Ace's immense singularity, Kokushi's flesh survives the singularity, and remains unmoved even in the presence of the colossal gravity. After the relative time of 28 seconds ends, the exploding humaniforms are ripped asunder under the violent gravitational force of the black hole. Having nary an instant to act, Kokushi flees the realm using the same technique he used to enter; he seals his "real" body along with his prize (a baby clone of Ace). Uncaring of the fleshy sphere he's left behind, it falls into the pull of the black hole and is pulled apart. Appearing again in the remnants of the village of Shadow Falls, he holds the crying baby gently and contemplates his next step. "I wonder if that other Kokushi was able to secure the rinnegan genetics I wanted..." Smiling broadly, he strolls into the shadows of the night. The Obsidian Companions versus Pestilence Meanwhile, as Kisui and Kosui plunge into the fog far ahead, they come face to face with the villain behind this terrifying disaster. With a slow, halting motion, his shaking hands retrieve a small black book from his trench coat's pocket. Opening it with reverence, he begins to speak in a slow, solemn tone. "Cage of the sinful, Cycle of life's illusion, Within the womb we weep." "Sorrow is the shadow of life. Suffering its sweet caress. It is only when confronted with finality of death, its inviolable truth, that we can face the futility of our mortal existences. Life is a fleeting illusion, rife with calamity and despair. Death is eternal. It is release. It is your salvation through destruction." His sermon seemingly complete, Kokushi closes the book, and slips it back into his coat pocket. "You stand at the precipice of the meaning of life. Would you know it?" "So the legends are true. Kokushi no Naraku. Hell of the Black Death. Always heard stories from the dying of you, but I merely thought you as legend." Kisui speaks, looking over the towering, masked man. "Were you the one who brought upon the deaths in this village?" Kisui asks, staring him with eyes of calm, the small orbs surrounding his Rinnegan slowly rotating. "Kisui, who is he?" Kosui asks, almost frightened by the man's image. "Kokushi no Naraku. Said to have been infected with nearly every disease known to man. They can't hurt him, but they manifest within him as if he was a human incubator for the viruses and bacteria." Kisui replies. Kokushi smiles, his arms spreading out as he coils into a bow. His rotted mouth strains into a smile, he responds, "In the flesh." Standing from his bow, he continues, "I know of you as well, Kisui Iyoku... or should I call you by another name, Samurai?" Kokushi's smile fades, as he adpots a more serious demeanor. "Death's gifts are not fit for the unworthy. To seek immortality- to seek to overcome death, is the highest act of hubris that we, as mere mortals, can commit. Your suffering will be without end, heretic." As the mist hems in, Kisui notices that his chakra sensing and chakra-based vision is failing to penetrate the rust-red fog. Kokushi's right arm begins to morph into some kind of tooth-lined maw, and it opens up. Dozens of leech-like tendrils wriggle free of the orifice, and hungrily launch themselves at Kisui and Kosui. Kokushi shifts his left arm behind his back, apparently concealing some action. Taking a deep breathe, Kisui closes his eyes for a short moment to gather his thoughts. He knows he can't rely on chakra sensing and vision, so it's up to using his normal vision. Disengaging his Rinnegan, Kisui forms a barrier, then looks at Kosui, giving her a nod. Figuring out what he was going to do, Kosui places her hand on Kisui's shoulder. The moment the tendrils smash against the barrier, it breaks, but Kisui and Kosui are nowhere to be found. Launching an attack on both of Kokushi's sides, Kosui forms a barrage of pressurized water jets while Kisui punches the ground, his Earth energy imbued into the punch, sending large chunks of earth towards Kokushi. As the ground cracks apart from Kisui's punch, Kokushi's surprise attack is revealed; the rock beneath contorts, then ruptures outward as a wave of fleshy tendrils tears free from the earth. His left arm occasionally contorts as his "limb" wrenches free and attempts to engulf Kisui. Kosui's attack hits Kokushi solidly, drilling a hole clean through his dense body- but lacking vital organs or discernible vulernabilities, the wound is largely superficial. Kokushi's right arm weaves around the arc of water, and the fleshy tendrils extend to enwrap Kosui's body. "Well... That's unsettling." Kosui says to herself. Forming orbs of water around the tendrils, Kosui shuts her hand into a fist, causing the water orbs to contract suddenly, smashing the tendrils to nothingness. Kisui, on the other hand engages his Rinnegan again, a task he found very difficult to do, like he had to force it to activate. "The mist, Kisui. It is affecting your ability to course energy into the Rinnegan. I advise you not to use it again." Hagoromo's spirit advises to Kisui. Nodding, Kisui uses it quickly to create a gravity well against Kokushi's arm, raising the gravity around the arm immensely. Once the gravity well was created, Kisui disengages his Rinnegan, breathing heavily as even more chakra was required to disengage it. Summoning a bow with a quiver of arrows at his side. Nocking an arrow, Kisui imbues the arrow with lightning energy and lets go of the string. The string slams the arrow through the air, crackling with a bright blue aura of electrical energy, seemingly cutting through the earth as some of the bolts lash out against the ground. The arm ruptures, being torn clean off of Kokushi's main body and torn to pieces by the crushing gravitational forces. Kosui's water orbs likewise shatter the tendrils attempting to enwrap her... but to her shock and horror, the remnants of the flesh seem to adapt, and in moments begin consuming the water-based chakra her techniques employed. In seconds, the pieces re-merge and commence attacking again, seemingly independently of Kokushi. Meanwhile, Kisui's arrow punctures kokushi's chest, exploding outward and electrifying his entire body. Little is left of Kokushi's torso except a mass of burned and torn tissue. Kokushi cries out in pain at the attack, and his body collapses in a smoldering heap. All of a sudden, the various pieces of flesh around stop moving, and appear to relax into undifferentiated puddles of flesh. As Kosui finds herself unable to stop the flesh remnants, having gained an immunity of sorts to her water attacks. As she begins stepping back, the flesh remnants follow her until suddenly stopping, relaxed in place. Breathing a sigh of relief, Kosui moves around the heap of flesh and other pieces to reunite with Kisui. "Is it over?" Kosui asks, looking over the puddle where Kokushi once stood. "No... Kokushi's smart. Something tells me he's nowhere near finished. He's still out there, somewhere. No doubt planning his next attack." Kisui replies, looking over the puddles with suspicion. Feeling his vision fade, Kisui's body becomes weak, almost disoriented as his vision began to fade. He feels his eyes starting to fade away, as if his Rinnegan was trying to die "My eyes, they're fading. I think I'm losing my vision..." Kosui could feel it, too. Her eyes seemed blurry, like she was trying to see through water. She felt weak, like the mist was weighing her down. A bizarrely unnatural and painful sensation overwhelms the obsidian companions, as the outer membrane of their eyes begins to flex and move on their own. Small, wriggling tendrils of flesh begin to sprout from their eyes, extending out to find purchase in the skin around their eye-sockets. Both are struck blind as the membrane begins to harden and take root in the inner tissue of the eyes. With dawning horror, Kisui realizes that should the root of this infection reach the soft tissue of the eye's nerve, it will only take moments for their blood to carry the infection to their brains... As the two grapple and claw at their eyes in agony, the puddles of flesh ripple, and then begin flowing across the ground to rejoin. There was little energy Kisui had left, and he was in drastic amounts of pain. He had one thing left before he'd find himself completely drained. He placed a seal around Kosui, sealing her into another dimension. He was going to let her live while he sacrificed himself. "I can sense you struggling in the seal, Kosui. Don't. It's time for the clock to strike a new hour. It's time for one last act, to prove that I could save you." Taking a slow breath, Kisui smiled, looking up at the grotesque masses of flesh form back into Kokushi, not able to see it, but he could hear the flesh coming back together. "Alright, I'm ready. I know you're still alive, Kokushi. I always knew. You're basically unkillable, and by the sound of your flesh re-fusing itself, you've proven it once again. But to be honest, I figured this place might have been my grave, or somewhere close, anyways. Kept having dreams of it. But the moment I'd close my eyes, I'd wake up." Closing his infected eyes, Kisui begins to await the finish. The infection had begun to reach his brain, where it was slowly killing him. In that instance, Kosui appeared out of nowhere and pulled him into the dimension with him. "You know, Kisui, you're really stupid. Why would you do something like that?" Kosui asks him, trying to hold back her tears. She wasn't too happy with Kisui's decision to seal her inside a dimension, even though it helped kill off some of the infection, freeing up her vision. But she could see Kisui was dying. His skin was turning pale and his eyes, though the infection was no longer around his eyes, were snow white, as if he was completely blind. "Because I wanted you to know that there's still people out there willing to give you a second chance. You thought you couldn't be saved, but I wanted to prove how wrong that assumption was. And seeing how you tried to help those people, even though they weren't real, made me see that there's still a bit of decency in you.." Following the sound of her cries, Kisui slowly gets up and places his hands on her cheeks, wiping away the tears. With a smile, Kisui slowly begins to glow. He could feel it; It was warm, almost like a blanket being wrapped over him. Realizing what was happening, Kisui lets it continue. "Maybe this form will be a bit less conspicuous." Kisui sighs. Kosui, seeing him begin to glow, wraps her arms around him, thinking he was going away. As she holds tightly onto him, his body is wrapped in an explosion of energy, which Kosui noted was warm and pleasant to the touch, like a strong, Summer gust. Kisui's entire genetic structure, down to his DNA, was being rewritten. The infection in his eyes was forced outwards, as if the old eyes were being replaced with new ones. Opening his eyes, Kisui's vision is blurry, barely being able to see Kosui. His body was weak, still trying to release the excessive regenerative energies. Breaking the barrier, Kisui and Kosui were outside of Shadow Falls, just directly outside of the Land of Craters. "There's still some infection left. I need you to get me to a medical center as soon as possible. Don't worry, I know a shortcut." Focusing what energy he had left from his old form, he teleports the two to Sunagakure, where Kisui guides her to a medical center. Running quickly, Kosui opens the doors to the facility with Kisui in her arms. "This man needs a doctor right away!" Kosui yells. The doctors, shocked at how he looked, administered him into an isolation room where they began pumping small amounts of radiation in meant to kill the infection. All Kosui could do at that point was wait, so she begins to wait out in the lobby of the facility. ----- Later... In the holding room for patient's clothes and personal effects, a small insect, some sort of cockroach, crawls out from underneath Kisui's boots and squeezes through a crack in the hospital wall. It looks around at its surroundings with strangely white eyes. Its skittering legs noiselessly carry it into the darkness of the hospital's interior walls. To be continued...